Digital Commons Network^™

A Call For Change: Minnesota Environmental Justice Heroes In Action, Volume 2, Christie Manning, Minori Kishi, Rachel Campbell

Books

Access Online: https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/environmentaljusticevol2/

This second volume of “A Call for Change: Minnesota Environmental Justice Heroes in Action” is a collection of the stories and efforts of environmental justice activists at the forefront of the Minnesota environmental justice movement. It is a compilation of interviews, conducted by students at Macalester College in 2023, to understand the layers of environmental injustice in Minnesota and bring attention to the resilience and determination of activists and communities. See volume one at https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/environmentaljustice/

Post-War Restitution In The Republic Of Croatia: Awareness Of The Komza And Reconciliation Of Moveable Property Through Public Sculpture, Anita Govic

Theses

This project is a public sculpture prototype focused on the need for post-war art restitution in the Republic of Croatia: it will have an impact by enhancing public knowledge of the KOMZA list, which offers legal proof for families to retrieve heirlooms taken during WWII and the wars of secession from Yugoslavia.

The sculpture design includes three pillars, two etched with the 1529 names from the KOMZA list and a third that will be progressively built, brick-by-brick, as artworks are restituted. The nature of viewers’ interaction includes access to QR codes that offer links to the KOMZA list, information about …

Singing In Dark Times: Improvisational Singing With Children Amidst Ecological Crisis, Stephanie Schuurman-Olson

Occasional Paper Series

Through this research-creation project -- which is represented by a process-driven ten-minute video -- the author asks what ways of knowing emerge when children and adults, more-than-human, and inhuman engage in improvised singing together in an urban park? This project recognizes our current "dark times" within ecological collapse and operates from a space that hopes to build relationality with sonic ecologies through listening-and-singing experiences, while centering the voices of children and other singers within the ecologies we sing in-and-with.

Stakeholder Perceptions Of Community Garden Features, Samantha Trajcevski

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

The presentation discusses the study currently being conducted on stakeholder perceptions and attitudes towards greenspaces. This is completed through the identification of different uses and features to maximize use of the space and stakeholder engagement in the community garden. To better understand stakeholder opinions, we utilized a creative qualitative research method combining photovoice and interviews/focus groups. We conducted eight in-depth semi-structured interviews and four focus groups. Multiple interviewees agreed that the Dayton View Triangle lacks access to a green space. Most believed that a garden would offer social cohesion. Understandably, most participants were concerned about who would manage the garden …

Energy Analysis Of The Integration Of Hrv And Direct Evaporative Cooling For Energy Efficiency In Buildings: A Case Study In Iraq, Husham Al-Naseri, Robert Fryer, Ali Samir

College of Architecture and the Built Environment Faculty Papers

Responding to climate change and adapting to global warming requires creative solutions. In Iraq, the most reliable and popular tool to have buildings cooled is airconditioning units (AC). While an evaporative cooler is not enough to achieve thermal comfort in a very hot climate, AC units consume a lot of energy which causes a significant load on the grid in Iraq resulting in increasing the emissions of CO2. This paper investigates the potential energy-saving associated with adopting a new arrangement of heat recovery ventilation (HRV) unit and evaporative cooler to achieve thermal comfort with far less energy. Two sets of …

The Middle Of The Middle: Purgatory, Pilgrimage, And Human And Plant Mobility In A Time Of Climate Crisis, Stephen S. Collis

The Goose

This paper, adapted from a talk given for the Institute of the Humanities at Simon Fraser University on April 26 2023, explores intersecting issues taken up by an in-progress long poem I am currently writing. That long poem, “The Middle,” explores questions of climate displacement, migration, and refuge via a writing-though of Dante’s Purgatorio—itself a poem of pilgrimage. A further context for both the poem and the paper about the poem is an ongoing project of walking in solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers, and immigration detainees that the author has been involved with since 2015. In seeking to “override …

Moving On Fluvial Land: Human Migration And Liquid Identities In Shiv K. Kumar’S A River With Three Banks, Muhammad Ali, Saira Fatima Dogar

The Goose

This article argues that any territory’s geological knowledge is essential to the understanding of how and why its inhabitants move on it the way they do. Taking Shiv K Kumar’s novel A River with Three Banks as its primary text, the article focuses on the protagonist, Gautam, whose frequent migrations within his country seem to emerge from his childhood attachment with the rivers of his land, the Indian Subcontinent, the fluvial quality of which is not an unknown phenomenon to geographers around the world. Gautam’s profound knowledge of what flows under his land is thus what shapes his personality, one …

2023-2024 Ursinus College Course Catalogue, Office Of The Registrar

Ursinus College Catalogues, 1869-Present

A digital copy of the 2023-2024 Ursinus College Catalog. It contains details of the curriculum, departmental requirements and courses of instruction as well as the Open Questions core requirements, experiential learning and the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE). Academic policies, special opportunities and scholarships, off-campus programs and graduation requirements are also outlined.

Inclement, Susan Wismer

The Goose

"Inclement," by Susan Wismer, is from Hageography:

Hagios, a Greek word for holy.

Hag, an old woman. Hag, an overhang at the edge of a cliff

Rough notes. Foot notes. Choreographies of happenstance.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: Pioneering Environmental Policy Change, Katherine Hoffsetz

Sustainability Conference

Rachel Carson's groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, published in 1962, serves as a pivotal moment in the history of environmental advocacy. The book exposed the consequences of pesticide use on ecosystems and called for a reevaluation of human impact on the environment. This research project aims to comprehensively analyze the profound and enduring impact of Carson's work on environmental public policy. The research employs a literature review and analysis of legislation to trace the influence of Silent Spring on environmental advocacy in the government. A correlation is revealed between the release of Silent Spring and the enactment of key environmental …

Garifuna Music Transcriptions: Western Notation Of Garifuna Rhythms, Isaac Antonio Rodriguez Bustillo

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

An annotated bibliography.

Off The Rails: Cinematic Trains As Technological Controls Of The Natural World, Trinity Thompson

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Short train rail lines across the United States are seeing increased national funding to reduce toxic chemical spills caused by train derailments, the most notable of which happened in February 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. A year prior, the film White Noise (2022) featured a similar toxic train derailment incident, taking place, too, in Eastern Ohio, and featuring actors from the town of East Palestine. In considering other films featuring trains, I identified a pattern of environmental conflict, leading me to question the relationship between trains and the natural environment as portrayed in popular cinema. To conduct my research, I …

Making Your Spring Break Sustainable: Can Tourism Be A Driver For Positive Environmental Change?, Katherine Ort

Journal of Maya Heritage

The Riviera Maya has undergone rapid development in the last few decades due to increased demand for tourism, putting pressure on surrounding ecosystems and cultural sites. As demand for tourism shows no signs of decreasing, there is an ever-increasing need for effective management solutions. The town of Puerto Morelos is striving to forward sustainable tourism based on its natural and cultural assets. As a new municipality, it has the chance to shape policy from a relatively blank canvas. This study involved collecting data about the different perspectives of key stakeholders through qualitative interviews and surveys to understand if the views …

Horn Studio Recital, Arkansas State University Department Of Music

Performance Programs

No abstract provided.

Queering Ecology: Three Investigations From Indigenous Women In Post-Conflict North Sumatra, Perdana Roswaldy

Antropologi Indonesia

Feminists and environmental scholars draw connections between gender inequality, heterosexism, and the devastating impact of environmental catastrophes on the livelihoods of women and gender minorities, exacerbating their precarity. This body of scholarship has begun to imagine alternatives to patriarchal gender and heterosexual norms for reconciling the relationship between humans and nature by calling for "queer(ing) ecology." I investigate the possibility of queering ecology by posing three theoretical concerns in opposition to anthropocentric and gendered preconceptions about nature: its idleness, naturality, and rightfulness. Respectively, I will dissect such presumptions by questioning nature as metaphors, investigating "the natural" attribute in nature, and …

The Animal In The Wild In Hwang Sun-Mi’S The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, Sarah Yoon

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Hwang Sun-mi’s The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly has become a contemporary classic children’s story in Korea since its original publication in 2000. Since then, the story has been translated and redesigned with new illustrations in almost thirty different countries (Y. Kim). The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly centers on a hen that raises a duckling as her “baby,” with the story drawing upon a rich reservoir of cultural associations between humans and nature in East Asian traditions. In this story, the hen leaves the human-dominated barnyard, based on profit, exploitation, and competition, for a reconnection with moral …

The Problems Of Design-Based Interdisciplinary Learning, Chen Wenzhi

IASDR Conference Series

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the challenges and difficulties of design-based interdisciplinary projects, the learning problems encountered by university students and the learning resources they used to overcome these problems. A total of 247 students participated in the survey. The study found that the main challenges and difficulties in design-based interdisciplinary learning included communication, the integration of different disciplines, the presence (or lack thereof) of students' collaboration skills, learning and cooperation difficulties with regard to different disciplines, and differences in thinking across disciplines. The problems students encountered included difficulties with interdisciplinary collaboration, inadequate professional guidance, personality …

Promoting Sustainable Practice Through Video-Based Social Media: An Exploration Of Food-Oriented R-Strategies For Domestic Consumption, Çağrı G. Varlı, F. Suhendan Eroglu

IASDR Conference Series

Sustainable food consumption is an increasingly urgent issue in academic and public discourse to explore novel approaches to reduce its impact. From planning to disposal, food consumption behaviors influence the amount of waste at the domestic level. The study aims to explore and demonstrate the use of video-based social media and a community leader in promoting sustainable practices, proposing R-strategies for food sustainability, and identifying discourses that can be integrated into everyday terminology. In this study, narratives of sustainable food consumption from chef Şemsa Denizsel’s "Artan Mutfağı” videos are investigated through directed content analysis to reveal food-related R-strategies. The study …

The Experience Of Awe In Nature And Its Implications For Sustainability, Ella Shriner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Awe is a complex emotion and a relatively new field of psychological study. Previous studies have looked at the benefits of spending time in nature including spurring environmental action, and how awe is felt in nature. In this study, I investigate the connection between these two ideas by addressing the questions of how Awe is experienced in the Northern Rivers region of Australia, and whether small and big moments of awe motivate people to take environmental action and connect them to their community and the natural world. For this study, I conducted 15 interviews, collected 51 surveys, and personally explored …

Does Renewable Electricity Promote Indigenous Sovereignty? Reviewing Support, Barriers, And Recommendations For Solar And Wind Energy Development On Native Lands In The United States, Corrie Grosse, Brigid Mark

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Native lands in what is called the United States have vast renewable energy resources. If focused on advancing sovereignty and self-determination, renewable energy development could alleviate harm from ongoing processes of settler colonialism and from the climate crisis, experienced by Native peoples first and worst. However, Native peoples benefit very little from existing renewable energy projects. To increase understanding on how renewable energy can better support Native sovereignty, this paper provides a systematic literature review of 74 articles published between 2003 and 2023 on Native peoples' involvement in wind and solar electricity in the United States. We find that existing …

Fauna As Fieldworkers: An Analysis On The Use Of Animals As A Form Of Organic Weed And Pest Management In Modern Viticulture, Mariana Del Carmen Campano

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Recent data on the current state of pesticide use in global agriculture suggests serious concerns over significant overuse and negative effects on both environmental and human health, and current trends only suggest continued increases in future global pesticide use. Without prompt, large-scale intervention, this global abuse of chemical pesticides spells significant threats of not only continued harm to global health and environmental quality, but also to the long term viability of agricultural lands and the growing threat of pesticide resistant insects and weeds. Various methods have been explored in the realm of integrated pest management (IPM), but a current lack …

Environmental Loss, Displacement, And Anxiety In Portugal: Analyzing News Articles To Differentiate Manifestations Of Environmental Distress, Robin Greene

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Expressions of environmental distress can take different forms, with different symptoms, causes, and treatments. Existing literature generally identifies three primary categories of environmental distress responses: environmental grief, solastalgia, and eco-anxiety. This paper explores these distinctions and identifies words typically associated with each category in Portuguese news articles using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). LDA is a Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique that groups words into topics and identifies connections between those words based on how often those words appear together in sequences. This paper uses a modified LDA algorithm called GuidedLDA to identify additional keywords within topics defined by a list …

“Without Water, Nothing”: Examining The Water Saving Practices Of Women In Amman Under Periodic Water Supply, Rory Dixon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Jordan is among the most water-scarce countries in the world. Consequently, water is only pumped to households once a week and households store water in tanks to last them until the next water day. Women conducting housework do so under conditions of environmental stress that this research calls resource-scarce domestic labor. In this study, I apply an eco-feminist lens to examine the water-saving practices women employ to manage and conserve domestic water supplies. I explore the larger causes of these behaviors including climate change, government management, and regional politics. Resource-scarce domestic labor is not a practice unique to Jordan and …

Patrimonio Cultural, Arqueología, Medio Ambiente Y Economía: ¿Cómo Ha Afectado La Construcción Del Aeropuerto Internacional De Chinchero-Cusco A Las Comunidades Y La Tierra De Chinchero?, Sydney Berenson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La urbanización gubernamental ha sido un problema para las poblaciones indígenas, el medio ambiente y la protección del patrimonio cultural durante numerosos años en todo el Perú. Más recientemente, en la pequeña ciudad de Chinchero, ubicada a unos 30 kilómetros al noroeste de Cusco, se está construyendo un nuevo aeropuerto internacional, Aeropuerto Internacional de Chinchero-Cusco (AICC), para reemplazar el actual aeropuerto nacional de Cusco. Chinchero es un importante centro urbano que está conformado por 13 comunidades campesinas que participan en la industria agrícola de la región, además consta con una importante comunidad artesanal, ruinas arqueológicas precolombinas y una gran biodiversidad. …

If We Were Fiction: Insect-Human Stories, Isabella Delaney

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This creative project delves into the nonlinear, interconnected web of insect-human relations in Nepal. Through exploring humans’ perceptions and stories of insects, this work intends to remedy the limits of traditional entomological knowledge, which forgets the ubiquitous reality of insects as more than biological and ecological agents. Insects are social, economic, and ethical “characters” in our lives, and recognizing this opens up possibilities for connection, hope, and evolution in this world. The potential of the mundane, the forgettable, pulses within humans’ unique attitudes toward insects and the forces that shaped them. This potential is represented in the final product of …

Ursinus Magazine, Fall 2023, Robyn E. Hannigan, Ed Moorhouse, Jennifer Meininger Wolfe, Ben Seal, William Mongan

Ursinus Magazine, 1995–Present

On the brain • Solving the problem • Brave in Season • Energy impact • Supporting recovery • Leading the conversation • Legacies of slavery • Bears on the Hill • At the Berman • Bear bites • Office space • The new view: How an Ursinus lab is threading machine learning and the human element • Lean on me: A system of student-led support • Pitch perfect • Welcome, new Bears! • Live from New York • Scenes on stage • On the fast track • Class notes • Marriages • In memoriam • Burning question: How can we …

Oscars Vs. Ozone: The Motion Picture Industry’S Impact On Climate Change And What They Are Doing About It, Alexis J. Simpson

Senior Theses

This thesis focuses on demonstrating that the motion picture industry, which includes film and television production (and thus will also be called ‘the film and television industry’), has notably contributed to the global effects of climate change. Such contributions can stem from the industry’s emissions and waste, with examples including travel for cast and crew, energy use for production equipment (some of which run on diesel), and disposable physical sets and costumes. The intention here is to give an accurate picture of current production practices and share examples of progress in the industry that are combating the negative impacts of …

When Planetary Cosmopolitanism Meets The Buddhist Ethic: Recycling, Karma And Popular Ecology In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

By thinking with and through Buddhist cosmology, this paper explores the emergence of an ethical sensibility—what we call planetary cosmopolitanism—that is based on not just a spatially expanded ethic of care to ecological worlds, but also a temporally extended sense of justice to the future Earth. This transtemporal sense of ethical becoming reflects how the possibility of future ‘rebirth’ and accountability for past actions can motivate new ecological consciousness in the present. We forge these ideas through an empirical focus on popular Buddhist ecological practices in Singapore, where green recovery visions have primarily been driven by a secular and technocratic …

“Nararampag Nga Mga Takna . . . Nangangaliding Nga Mga Higayon”: Memory, Nostalgia, Love, And Loss In Victor Sugbo’S Taburos Han Dagat, Jessa A. Amarille

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

This paper explores how the concepts of memory, nostalgia, love, and loss are depicted in the poems 1) “Ha Akon Paglinakaton,” (In My Travels[1]), 2) “May Ada Panahon” (There Comes a Time), 3) “Parada Han mga Sinya” (The Parade of Zinnias), 4) “An Pagdumdum” (On Recalling), 5) “Kawarayan” (Emptiness), 6) “Agurang Mundo” (Old Mundo), 7) “Taburos Han Dagat” (Sea Spray), 8) “La Madonna Alegro,” and 9) “Cadena de Amor” from Victor N. Sugbo’s Taburos Han Dagat (2014) using an ecocritical lens. Published in a post-Haiyan context, the poems may be classified as belonging to the ecopoetry genre with …

Scents Of Place: Exploring Self, Place And Planet Through Botanical Fragrance, Jennifer L. Kitson, Donna M. Sweigart

Open Educational Resources

This learning module provides instructors with an experiential field guide for introducing students to the United Nations Inner Development Goals Framework through self-guided mindful smelling activities and reflection prompts related to botanical fragrance. The interdisciplinary nature of this module allows for use or adaptation in a wide range of courses looking for outdoor, place-based and self-guided experiential learning to explore the role of botanical fragrance for people, plants and pollinators. The overarching goal is to deepen students’ connections to their senses (and scents) of self, place and planet through exploring botanical fragrance with mindful smelling. The learning activities in this …